So it's okay to insult religious beliefs in America, but if you insult religions based overseas then

[Moonwalk]

76. It's one thing to insult the KKK, another to insult them when they're surrounding a friend's house..

...with torches lit. You're safely mocking the KKK from where they can't get at you. But they can get at your friends. If you want to poke at an angry tiger, have at it. But if a group of innocent people are stuck in a cage with that tiger, then poking at it from outside the cage is irresponsible, and makes you culpable for putting them in danger. THEY presumably know the tiger better than you, and you shouldn't poke at it without asking them first if this is a good idea, because THEY are the ones who will suffer the consequences. Not you.

This is why this situation is problematic. Not because these people don't have the right to insult religions, but that they don't have the right to put other people's lives in danger just because they want to insult a religion. The religion, we should especially note, of several theocracies. In the U.S. the government is on the film maker's side and, presumably, will make an effort to stop people from beating him up over his insults to their religion. But in a theocracy, the government isn't on the side of person insulting the religion; in fact, the government is as likely to beat up film maker over the insult as random people are.

We're not talking about getting hate mail from religious fanatics here. These are insults that can motivate a government to take action because the damn government is a theocracy. And such insults matter to them. Which is why it's "okay" to insult a religion in the U.S. (not a theocracy--at least not yet), but it is not okay to insult the religion of a powder-key theocracy. Especially not when innocents might pay the price.